Barclays Capital issued a mostly positive review late Thursday of Nokia’s two new Lumia Windows phones unveiled� this week. In sum: competitively priced, not overly differentiated.
“We believe all six devices will be competitive in the marketplace from both hardware and pricing standpoints. Nokia in fact highlighted that pricing tariffs for the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 will be one notch cheaper than the iPhone 4S across all launch markets … we have been positively surprised by the large number of [wireless] operators involved (an average of 5 per country where the device will be launched in Western Europe this quarter).”
The Lumia 800 from Nokia (NOK) boasts an 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera, 3.7-inch touch screen and 1.4 gigahertz single core processor, but is “not overly differentiated,” notes the foursome of Barclays analysts in New York and London covering Nokia. While the 800 is priced at 420 euros (about $594), it will be free with some two-year contracts. And, with some 12- and 18-month contracts,� “the Lumia 800 is even more competitively priced when compared to the iPhone and the Galaxy SII,” Barclay’s concludes.
The 800 is to roll out with 31 phone providers across France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK beginning in November. Nokia adds Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan markets in the fourth quarter, and� the U.S. and China in the first half of 2012.
Barclays is decisively upbeat compared to the initial skepticism we published, with a $10 price target. Barclays’ analysts say the 4Q launch is only the start of Nokia’s work with Microsoft on the Windows operating system. They conclude the second quarter “was the bottom” and that debate will shift to operating margins.
Conclusion: “we should expect to see greater differentiation across Nokia�s WP7 devices in future software updates.”
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